


Saronis Applications

by lyricsaboutcats



Series: N7 Prompts [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-25 10:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10762071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricsaboutcats/pseuds/lyricsaboutcats
Summary: The store clerk named Marab meets Commander Shepard for the first time.





	Saronis Applications

It is unlike anything he has ever heard before.

Nasurn Ter Aegohr Shahu Kaleh Marab believes at first that the hanar are ringing small bells, only realizing when he passes by their shrine that the bioluminescent aliens are actually singing. He stops to listen, and they serenade the departed souls of a ravaged human colony into the afterlife. A drell contemplates each name and the bells ring higher, ascending into the lights of the ward to welcome each soul home to the eternal sea.

“ _Drala'fa, drala'fa_ ,” the drell chants gently after each name.

Marab’s eyelids flutter upward as he watches in silence, and then he turns toward the shop where he works each day in Zakera Ward’s twenty sixth level. A human clerk named Derek waits for him there, opening the doors with him and unpacking equipment. Marab smiles when people begin to filter in, requesting technology that is ubiquitous to life on the space station, and Saronis Applications maintains a steady stream of customers throughout the day; each one looking for discounts in the less opulent corners of the Citadel.

“Have you seen that new ramen place?” Kian asks, wandering over from the Sirta Foundation during a slow moment.

Marab blinks at her. “Is that what the new smell is?”

“Goddess, I hope not. I think that’s the factory.”

The day is long, and yet there is still not enough time to do everything. He can still hear the drell occasionally as he works, chanting in the space between requests and demands; a plainly decorative sound in the utilitarian space. A volus approaches the counter demanding an omni-tool and a discount, and Marab’s mind settles into familiar paths of upgraded firmware and applications until the rotund creature leaves, blustering about the cost of his latest purchase.

There is a credit chit on the counter, forgotten near the catalogue interface. Marab grabs it with long fingers. He holds the metal square up to the light, and then glances at his fellow clerk in surprise. “Hey, lucky you,” the human man says. “How much is on it?”

Marab shakes his head and sets it back down. “I don’t know. I’m not going to keep it.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs and turns away.

The chit is tucked into a drawer, any thoughts of its value also set aside. Marab looks up, remembering to smile with practiced interest when more customers approach him, and begins to utter a greeting. “Welcome to -”

His voice dies away in utter surprise.

Marab’s tone, always cheerful for the sake of professional service, takes on a lilt of genuine excitement and pleasure at the sight of the famous human he recognizes immediately. “Ah! Shepard!” he exclaims eagerly, leaning over the counter.

Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard, Hero of Elysium, Savior of the Citadel, and first human Spectre of the Citadel Council, raises an eyebrow at him beneath strands of short red hair. “Do I know you?” she asks, and there is a faint sincerity to her voice, as if he could tell her yes and she might believe him.

“No,” he admits, too thrilled by her celebrity to be unnerved by the assault rifle strapped to her back or the furious quarian standing next to her. “But I know you. Even a senile hanar would remember the human who fought off the geth.” He notes that Shepard smiles when he says _senile hanar_ , and so he continues. “I thought you were dead,” he tells her.

The smile wanes away and Shepard runs a hand through her hair, looking back toward the door uneasily. “Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately.”

Marab falters ever so slightly; he has perhaps said the wrong thing to her. He waves his hand toward the omni-tool display on the wall. “Please, look around the store,” he offers. “It’s a pleasure to have you in here.”

Shepard looks up at him again, her smile returning. “Actually, a volus was in here not too long ago. Did he drop a credit chit?”

“Oh!” Marab dives down beneath the counter, pulling at the drawer to retrieve the chit, holding it up with one hand. “He bought some environmental system drivers, and then left without it. If you see him, tell him I have it behind the counter.”

The quarian trembles with umbrage, her fists clenching angrily at the sight of it. “That racist little _bosh'tet_!”

Shepard hushes her, offering Marab a quick note of thanks, and then they both turn to leave.

“Not a problem! Have a good day!” Marab calls out after them. He exhales, watching her go, enjoying what will perhaps be the only exciting thing to happen to him that day. He bobs his head happily, moving to the other end of the counter, and his eyes are bright when he looks at his fellow shopkeeper. “Commander Shepard was just in here,” he declares conversationally.

“Yeah, I heard you,” Derek responds. “Hell, I think the guys over at the shipping warehouse heard you.” An asari and an elcor browsing for astrographic software have stopped to watch the exchange, and Marab feels faintly embarrassed at the sudden attention when so many eyes pause to stare at him. The asari lets out a giggle, and Derek shakes his head. “You’ve got to be a little smoother in the future.”

“What?” Marab asks.

The asari smiles. “I think it’s cute,” she tells him very kindly.

“Wait, what are you all talking about?”

“Your big celebrity crush,” the human clerk informs him helpfully. “You were absolutely reverent over there.”

Marab’s mouth drops open in surprise. “No I wasn’t,” he insists. “I was offering her helpful customer service.” His eyes flicker between the faces of the trio staring at him, and he places his hands on the counter, insistently gazing at each one of them to drive home his point. “Look, if I sent her a contract nothing would happen. Even I know humans don’t lay eggs.”

“You could just ask her out on a date. I went on a date with a salarian once,” the asari recalls fondly, turning to hush the elcor when the large creature shifts in agitation. “It was a long time ago, though. He dumped me the very next day.”

Marab blinks, removing his hands from the counter. “Why did he dump you?”

“I don’t really know. He didn’t stay to tell me.”

The elcor finally speaks up, his face wiggling impatiently. “Emphatically, because he was an idiot.”

Marab nods in agreement, crossing his arms thoughtfully. “Salarians don’t have the hormones that other species do,” he tells the asari, his tone quiet with apology. He mulls over the question, losing himself in his own thoughts. “I still wouldn’t dump Shepard, though,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. “Who dumps Commander Shepard? She’s amazing.”

The elcor flutters his mouth. “Speculatively, those with a death wish.”

The human clerk waggles his eyebrows at the asari, who giggles again, and he leans toward her over the counter. “Marab here has a Commander Shepard VI on his omni-tool. Do you want to see it?”

Marab blusters incredulously, his eyelids retracting into a wide stare of embarrassment. “That was free with a software upgrade!” he says, balking away from them all. He wrings his hands a single time, blinking furiously. “It’s not even very accurate,” he continues. “Shepard is way more impressive in real life. You saw her. She’s the only reason the Citadel is still operational. She’s-”

The elcor interrupts him slowly. “Helpfully, amazing?”

Marab groans loudly and turns away from them all, retreating to his own counter at the other end of the shop. He continues to blink, tapping his hands on the counter, attempting to banish the embarrassment away. He inwardly chides himself whenever his eyelids self consciously retract, and he tries to distract himself by checking the store’s catalogue for interface for errors.

“She could have stolen it!” a volus yells outside. A familiar voice answers immediately, admonishing him at equal volume.

Any thoughts about the catalogue interface scatter away. Marab vaults over the counter as the yelling continues, followed by Derek and then the two customers, and they poke their heads outside of the shop’s door curiously. Kian from Sirta Foundation has done the same, her mouth parted in surprise.

“Are you two serious?!” Commander Shepard roars to a C-Sec officer in the plaza, grabbing the man by his shirt collar and dragging him away from a young quarian pilgrim. “She gets harassed and insulted by that guy, and you throw in a threat to arrest her for vagrancy?!”

The C-Sec officer waves his data pad angrily, his feet dangling helplessly when Shepard lifts him into the air. “How about if I run you in for obstruction of justice?!”

“You think you’re going to run in a Council Spectre?!”

“Son of a…”

Marab clutches at the door frame very tightly, his eyes wide as the scene continues, a growing sense of excitement surging within his chest. Commander Shepard is a hurricane of red hair and military confidence, and when the C-Sec officer runs off she sets her remaining wrath on the volus, who stomps indignantly and uselessly at her. Marab leans farther forward, engrossed.

"Wow," the elcor murmurs next to him.

Marab exhales when it is all over, disappointed that she does not return to the shop that day. Two years ago the entire population of the Citadel had been informed by an excess of news broadcasts that Commander Shepard was spaced over Alchera, dying heroically in a fight against a group of remaining geth near the Amada system. It was big news at the time, particularly with the damaged Wards still recovering from the initial invasion that she drove back. Marab can still recall the overwhelming nausea that rose in the pit of his stomach when the ground shuddered and the arms of the Citadel closed.

He dreams of it at night, tossing and muttering, his destroyed apartment in Kithoi Ward burnt into his mind.

Marab sweeps the shop in the evening, worn from selling upgrades and astrographic charts, and he thinks about the way the dim neon lights of Zakera reflected momentarily vivid on Shepard’s black N7 armor. The broom halts whenever he looks up at the ceiling, smiling and musing quietly at the memory of her. The drell no longer chants, but his voice still lilts softly through Marab’s consciousness.

 _Drala'fa, drala'fa_.

The ringing bells drift into the shop whenever she returns.


End file.
